Long ago when I was a youth I remember my father telling me that a person with real character admitted to his mistakes and took his lumps. The thought of lying about or denying something I was responsible for should never even cross my mind. It was just the way most kids were raised back then. If you screwed up and you were caught you stepped forward to admit the wrong-doing, even if it meant there would be some “lumps” involved.
Trying to limit or deflect any punishment by comparing your actions to another’s was something that just never worked. Telling your dad, “But little Jimmy also did it”, wasn’t an argument that dad wanted to hear. In fact, trying that tactic would usually result in worse punishment than just admitting to something up front. My dad called it the “Yeah But” defense. And it was unacceptable.
Nowadays the “Yeah But” defense is alive and well within the Democrat Party. Democrat political pundits and apologists resort to it often when trying to explain away another member of their party’s transgressions. It seems that in their minds pointing out that “little Jimmy did it too” serves as some sort of legitimate excuse for a Democrat’s misdeeds.
Just recently, former Secretary of State and Democrat Party front-runner for the party’s nomination for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton has resorted to the “Yeah But” defense. Apparently trying justify her and her senior staff’s activities in the on-going e-mail scandal plaguing her campaign.
As if the fact, as has been recently reported alleging that former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice also had a couple of low level classified messages sent to a private e-mail address, serves as a reasonable explanation for Hillary’s use of her own private, and unsecured e-mail ‘server’ to transmit and receive highly classified information. Arguing that it serves as some sort of ‘get out of jail free card’ for Ms. Clinton.
Supposedly Powell and Rice’s reported transgressions are somehow comparable to what Hillary Clinton and members of her senior staff are currently under scrutiny for. All subjects of an FBI investigation for having more than a thousand classified e-mails sent and received over her private e-mail ‘server’.
Some of which were classified at the highest levels, including Special Access Program information considered higher than Top Secret. Hardly the same thing as what may have been done by those serving before her.
Just the other day after a question from a news reporter, Hillary was quick to assert that she isn’t the only former Secretary of State to have transgressed. Quickly resorting to the “Yeah But” defense in pointing out that her recent predecessors also had done the same thing. As if two wrongs make a right. Apparently only to a Democrat.
Hillary and her defenders have also been trying to create doubt about the classification of documents at all, claiming that “over-classification” is a problem in government. Apparently the ‘smartest woman in the world’ and her sycophants aren’t aware of the fact that out of bits and pieces of so-called harmless information, our enemy’s intelligence services are able to construct an entire puzzle. A puzzle which may reveal some of our most closely held secrets and place the nation at extreme risk.
Which is the reason why no one can just unilaterally decide that something really isn’t classified after all. That falls to the originator of the document or the sensitive information to decide.
Almost before the ink dried in the newspapers Hillary’s defenders were on as many television news and interview programs as they could manage, in order to leap to her defense and point out the transgressions of Hillary’s predecessors, or trying to claim over-classification.
The “Yeah But” defense has long been a staple of the Democrat Party, also known as the ‘Party of Non-Responsibility’. Whenever confronted with the misdeeds of any of its members the typical response has been to go on the offensive. Admit nothing, deny everything, and make counteraccusations.
Instead of owning up to any shortcomings they’ll simply look to blame others. “Oh, it’s Bush’s fault”. Or, “Oh, it’s Cheney’s fault”. Anything but admit to any responsibility for themselves.
It simply doesn’t matter to them that real crimes may have been committed. All that matters is party loyalty at all costs. Regardless of what is best for America. That has always been the main concern of the Democrat Party, protecting the party over all else, including the American people.
Well it’s become pretty obvious that Hillary’s father never had the same conversation with his daughter that my father, and many other fathers had with their kids way back when. He obviously never told her when she was growing up that resorting to the “yeah but” defense to justify one’s own misdeeds is rather cowardly at the least, and unseemly at best. And certainly not an acceptable argument to the FBI investigators looking into her placing America’s national security at risk.
And it shouldn’t be acceptable to the American people.
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